1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to systems and methods for performing a medical procedure, wherein the medical procedure includes the generation and transfer of energy from an energy source to a dynamically changing device and, more particularly, efficient transfer of energy through a microwave energy delivery, measurement and control system.
2. Description of Related Art
During microwave ablation procedures, the electrical performance of a microwave antenna probe changes throughout the course of an ablation treatment. The change in performance may be due to the device or due to changes in tissue properties. The ability to observe parameters indicative of the operation of the microwave energy delivery device and parameters indicative of energy delivered to tissue provides a better understand of individual properties of microwave energy delivery devices and the effect these properties have on energy delivery.
The present disclosure describes the use of a Microwave Research Tool (MRT) to conduct extensive testing of various microwave energy delivery devices. Various tools, control algorithms and data collection algorithms were used to vary the delivery of microwave energy and to monitor the effectiveness of the ablation devices and the ablation size in tissue. Testing included delivery of microwave energy as a continuous wave and as a pulsed wave over a fixed time at varying energy levels and with several different microwave energy delivery devices. Tissue temperature was monitored with temperature sensors inserted into tissue, energy delivery was monitored by the MRT and various parameters related to energy delivery were calculated after each test.
Estimation and/or measurements of ablation size and energy delivery were used to compare the performance and operation of various microwave energy delivery devices to gain a better understand ablation and the understanding of the device performance and the effect the performance had on ablation. This new understanding was applied in the present disclosure in a microwave generator with device specific microwave energy control algorithms.